Plan for Review Process of Minigrants

Who will be the readers?

Readers for the minigrant proposals will include the co-coordinators of the TLN Leadership Team TM Minigrants: Betty Collum, Gail Desler and Felicia George, and possibly one or two representatives of the TechMatters facilitation team.

How will the knowledge of the TechMatters facilitators be used in the review process?

TechMatters facilitators will be part of a two-tier process either at the TechMatters Institute or before proposals are due on August 19, 2007.  For the first tier, all facilitators will be available to the participants they worked with during the TechMatters Institute. These facilitators will evaluate the seed ideas or draft proposals, as an initial guide, prior to the applicants returning to their sites to plan with their directors and other site leaders. As a part of the second tier, a select number of facilitators will be among the team of reviewers. 

How will the review process be framed?

The reviewers will have an initial meeting in which the following process will be outlined for review of the proposals. An online conversation based on the categories of the Request for Proposal guidelines will be held to determine the award of grants.  Each reviewer will read and respond to each proposal. Team members, if necessary will discuss the applications through email or a conference call for strengths and weaknesses and areas of improvement. Proposals will be recommended, or they will be designated as needing to be resubmitted for revision based on feedback given by the mini-grant reviewers.

Recommendations will then be submitted to the NWP Management Team, through Paul Oh, thinking partner.

All grants will be evaluated on the basis of the following criteria:

Leverage - Does the project build on existing, successful projects or ongoing core work of the local site goals?

Collaborative Impact - Will the project extend or create resources in ways that will build leadership capacity? Does the project clearly support the applicant (local TL) as the key planner and leader of the work at the local writing project site? Are all personnel involved included in a timeline that exhibits responsibilities and an anticipated date of completion?

Feasibility - Does the site have the leadership capacity to accomplish the goals of the project? How does the budget reflect the goals of the project? Why is the proposed strategy likely to succeed? Does the applicant include a brief summary of the proposal to include in publications? Does the applicant have the support/signature of the site director?

Network Impact -Does the proposal include a dissemination plan or documentation?  Does the plan seem feasible?